John van Gurp

Hello friends,

I’ve been busy with web projects for various groups and sites and between that with a steady flow of email some things will just slip. One is updating this blog and another is compiling all of my personal web pages into some kind of easily navigated single site.

At the same time we’re doing some design and planning for a cottage at Russell Lake, Queens County situated around 20 minutes before Kedjimikudjik National Park when coming from Bridgewater. in the district known as North Queens.

The lot has a good sized clearing with a shale driveway and a flat building area free of stumps and rocks. The driveway has some very steep sections.

The rest of the lot except for a strip along the lake is pretty steep running up to the edge of the property and then further uphill to the dirt road at the top of the hill. It’s quite nice up there with wide vistas over stands of softwood and mixed forests. You can walk a crude dirt road along the crest of the hill and into an area of large hemlocks and rough granite boulder scattered in gurgling brooks and around the mossy forest floor.

In the spring hopefully before the road gets soft we will have Nova Scotia Power down with a pole truck and backhoe or auger to place poles and string wire from the main line down to a temporary service that I will ask Ron Frail of Caledonia Electric to set up on a lone pine where we plan to build.

Here’s the general idea of a floor plan… I haven’t laid out any details yet but expect the materials for a shell with windows and doors will cost around $10K. I could be underestimating…

This is something we really look forward to and we hope to share the place with friends and family when it’s done…

Besides this project Kate and Peter are growing up and moving through life pretty much exactly as we hoped. Never a single complaint or issue that can’t easily be resolved and we all get along great. In the house we tend to respect each other’s rights as if we are housemates sharing rent and space, to some degree. Naturally we are still parents, but as far as privacy and property rights go this is the way things work.

On another front I spent the evening with a dear friend of 20 years who dealt with a renal cancer diagnosis two years ago, with the subsequent treatments and health changes and who now has malignant brain tumours. It’s difficult to deal with the mortality presented by this unrelenting disease. All that we friends and loved ones can do is ‘be there’ offering unconditional support and relishing every day we spend together.

This philosophy of living every day with verve and gusto guides Heather and I in all of our decision-making now, although of course we also keep an eye on the future because of the rich rewards that exist there in watching children grow into adults and in sharing life with others.

~ John